Ever since I played around with my first prime lens, about a decade ago, I have been enamoured by the quality and sharpness of prime lenses. As of late, Nikon has been release some very impressive prime lenses at great price points. These lenses perform just a tad bit less than their f/1.4 counterparts, but cost three times as little too. Specifically the Nikon 28mm f/1.8 AF-S has caught my eye and is getting some raving reviews.

[…] the Nikon 28mm f/1.8G costs three times less than the excellent, but extremely expensive Nikon 24mm f/1.4G and offers overall relatively good performance. It handles distortion, longitudinal and lateral aberration, ghosting and flare extremely well and in some ways even better than its big brother, the 24mm f/1.4G. It produces beautiful images with excellent colors and despite its 7 blade diaphragm, it actually renders bokeh a little better than the 24mm f/1.4G at largest apertures.

Overall, this is a great little gem. It might not survive being hit with a baseball bat (though I haven’t tried), but it balances extremely well on the D600. […] My highest recommendation is that I bought one, and I almost didn’t want to tell you about how much I liked it, because I wanted it all too myself.

If at this point it seems that the review has somewhat turned into a comparison between the Zeiss ZF.2 28 Distagon and the 28G, you’d be right — in my mind, these are natural competitors (at least they are in my lens cupboard, at any rate). It’s very difficult to choose between the two — the Zeiss does have a certain hard-to-define quality about its microcontrast structure and bokeh that just makes images shot with it slightly more vivid and three-dimensional; however, you lose very little with the Nikon, and gain much convenience by way of autofocus.

This might well become the staple on my camera. I can’t wait to play with it myself.

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